


Irrational methods

by orphan_account



Category: Suzumiya Haruhi Series, Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu | The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi
Genre: F/F, Misses Clause Challenge, Pre-Canon, Slice of Life, Unrequited Love, slice of knife
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-22
Updated: 2011-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-27 18:57:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/298965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Many things are unnecessary," Ryoko said, "and yet they still exist."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 春

**Author's Note:**

  * For [halfeatenmoon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/halfeatenmoon/gifts).



> these two are my favorites and I'm so happy to be able to write them for my first yuletide! ♥
> 
> thanks to Shayheyred for betaing!!

Yuki Nagato's hand was warm and solid in her own. To be precise, Ryoko could detect a body temperature of 36 degree celsius, a regular heart rate of exactly 60 beats per minute, vibrating steadily in the ulnar artery under the pale skin of her wrist. As expected. Their interfaces functioned perfectly, or at least as perfectly as was possible in an organic system, which really wasn't much at all.

"This is unnecessary," she said, as Ryoko pulled them over to a spare bench.

"Many things are unnecessary," Ryoko said, "and yet they still exist. Besides, take a look around us! There are so many other people around the area. Surely they must find something compelling in the data to assemble this way."

Yuki paused as she analyzed her surroundings. "There are exactly 283 human beings of various ages within a 15-kilometer radius of this location."

"Exactly. I did a little research of my own before we came," Ryoko pursed her lips, tapping her finger against her cheek. Even these gestures were unnecessary. But they did convey useful social data to other human lifeforms, which made her infiltration just that much easier. They really were strange creatures, so primitive as to require communicative cues channeled through bodily actions when even inefficient verbally-transmitted data was insufficient. Such fascinating creatures.

"It's called 'hanami', apparently. They take time out of the day for no other purpose than to view the flowers. I thought it'd be an interesting experiment for us to participate in. Surely you don't object--you still have quite some time until you come out of standby mode, after all."

The other interface was silent, and after scanning the area, simply returned to looking into the distance beyond the river, at nothing in particular. Frankly, Ryoko shared her sentiments. She didn't quite understand the aesthetics either, despite being able to perfectly emulate the cues associated with emotions like fascination and wonder, expressions that decorated the faces of every other human being in the area.

A sudden soft breeze whispered by, fluttering pale petals loose and letting them drift earthwards with an appreciative sound from the flower-admirers. On a whim, Ryoko rewrote the atmospheric data, tweaking air pressure to conjure up another wind, one that was slightly stronger and was able to shake off an even greater amount of sakura (an increase of approximately 27%, she deducted), eliciting an even more impressed response from the crowd. Yuki Nagato, however, turned immediately to face her.

"Manipulating the environment is not recommended. There will be long-term consequences in the global system. You are aware of this."

"Certainly," she blinked, mildly surprised at her superior's admonishment. "But such reactions will be minuscule and insignificant. Is it really that much of a concern?"

There was no reply, and Ryoko grinned cheekily, plucking a few wayward petals out of the air as they floated down like snowflakes. "Doesn't it seem like a missed opportunity, not to at least try understanding and taking part in some of the illogical activities that human beings do? Or, if you'd rather consider the rational argument, it could help us perfect our interfaces' disguises when we go into effect. Just think about it."

Yuki just sat on the bench, letting flowers settle on her lap and her head. Ryoko sighed and settled back to analyze the petals' falling pattern. It was useless for her to even try to understand the aesthetics the way humans did. But, somehow, there was something inexplicably compelling about the placement and color data of sakura on Yuki's dark hair, her shoulders, her small hands, her neatly pleated skirt. She filed this information away and resolved to work on the experiment another day.


	2. 夏

Whenever Ryoko had a choice, she cooked fish. Of course, technically speaking, she always had a choice. Just because their interfaces were organic lifeforms didn't mean that they couldn't bypass a few biological processes when they wanted to. Both of them had gone their first few weeks on earth without intaking any sustenance, opting instead to assimilate vital minerals directly from the component data of their environment to keep their metabolic systems running. It was an efficient method, too, much more so than humans and their habit of... consuming things. Really, however did a bizarre system like that evolve, anyway? Or, for that matter, similarly incompetent processes as respiration and thermoregulation?

Despite her personal opinion on the matter, however, she decided to be as objective as possible about the situation. The facts were simple. She and Yuki Nagato had been realized as humanoid interfaces, with all the metabolic functions that it entailed. As such, they should at least make an effort to try some of them out.

"After all," Ryoko said brightly, "people always say, 'when in Rome, do as the Romans do', right?"

She paused to let Yuki wrack her database for the correct answer. Some day, she'd really have to teach the other interface the meaning of the rhetorical question, though honestly sometimes even Ryoko herself wasn't sure if what she'd said had sufficiently conveyed her intents. Spoken-word communication was so inconvenient that way.

Finally, "I do not have the relevant information within my system."

"Well, that's fine too," Ryoko said. "But my point is that while we have the opportunity to be stationed in Japan, which according my investigations is considered a nation with some of the most desirable fish dishes in the world, we should try to sample and create our own. For one thing, it appears to be a seasonal tradition, and not participating may make us suspect, though I wouldn't claim to know how humans operate. We both know how illogical they can be. Furthermore, on the topic of this food type in particular, general opinion seems to agree that fish is one of the most healthy meals available for human consumption. I don't have enough data to verify that, and frankly I don't want to know more about metabolic processes than absolutely necessary, but I assume you understand my reasoning."

"A request for clarification had not been issued," Yuki said.

"Then you agree that it's quite kind of me to provide some anyway, isn't it?" Ryoko giggled as they browsed through stalls of gleaming fillets and gaping mouths, yellow eyes and glittering scales. Expanses of white, ice-laden tables were broken up by the occasional blue tanks filled with writhing bodies. There were all kinds of species, some taken from the local river, others transported from markets further away, flounder, trout, scabbard fish. It was quite warm and muggy--to be precise, Ryoko could detect a temperature of 34 degrees celcius, a humidity level of exactly 97%. Tomorrow would probably rain.

"I don't suppose you have any preference, Nagato-san? It appears that we should try to choose a fresh specimen for best results."

Yuki said nothing. Ryoko ran a randomization algorithm and, decision made, maneuvered through crowds like a minnow through its school to the stall selling local river trout. The fishmonger was a man of experience, who easily selected the prime catch (Ryoko had confirmed, just out of idleness, a quick analysis showing that every other individual did indeed have a smaller body mass). The butchering was swift and simple to the point of absurdity; the creature had been flapping out the last moments of its life for barely ten seconds after it'd been hoisted out of the water. Then the silver tip of a knife entered its gills and wrenched upward with an abrupt movement. If she'd been investigating its metabolic data, she would no doubt have been able to locate the exact millisecond that nervous transmission ceased and life was extinguished.

It was somewhat interesting, she supposed. Actually, death was somewhat of an unknown to data entities who had been in existence for as long as existence had existed. First of all, her interface was hardly in any danger of being terminated by conventional means. If her metabolic processes were damaged to the point of malfunction, she could always repair the data in queue. Even if her link to the interface itself was terminated, her program would still be a part of the Entity. They could always realize her again if circumstances deemed it appropriate. Death, it seemed, was simply a non-factor to those who never quite fit the shallow requirements of 'life' in the first place.

But the same couldn't be said for inferior organic lifeforms, Ryoko thought as she accepted the bag of meat. It was somewhat interesting that for the less fortunate beings of this planet, life could be cut short easily with the simplest application of a blade. Actually, it was almost absurd, though she couldn't tell for certain if she entirely understood the human concept of absurdity in the first place.

In the end, she'd settled for grilling the trout and sharing the first meal with Yuki that evening, when temperatures had settled to a slightly more thermoregulatorily preferable 29 degrees celsius. As always, Yuki had been silent as she'd tried the dish. Ryoko had consumed it with a degree of anticipation--she hadn't been sure what she was expecting, and human descriptors of taste seemed to be unsatisfactory as a rule. Data entities never required sustenance, much less needed to intake it through inefficient organic processes. But the experience was...

"Unique," Yuki Nagato said suddenly, and Ryoko nearly dropped her chopsticks in surprise. It was rare for her superior to speak a non-command to her without prompting. For some reason, Ryoko smiled, even if there were no humans in their small apartment room to witness and interpret the data cue. The gesture was entirely unnecessary; she decided it didn't matter.

From that day on, whenever Ryoko had a choice, she cooked fish.


	3. 秋

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is moderately graphic, so if reading violence isn't your thing, I recommend skipping to the next chapter!

It wasn't as if her usual route back to their apartment was particularly noteworthy in any way. They lived in a rather ordinary neighborhood, occupied by students, businesspeople, and only the occasional other data interface. People began to regularly stop her on the streets for conversation, especially as Ryoko better honed her social repertoire in preparation for entering school in two years. It'd be nice to get close to her target and better observe the data output, and, once you learned how, most humans were remarkably easy to manipulate. She'd made habits of giving gifts and compliments, perfecting the art of small talk, sharpening an amicable personality and a practiced smile until it could cut through any defenses.

In retrospect, she might have been overly distracted by the thought of preparing a new battered jack mackerel recipe for dinner that night, and didn't spare a thought to analyze the stranger who had tapped her shoulder as she entered a darker alley on the way back home. Really, if she spent all her time investigating small data variations in every human she came across, she wouldn't have time to do anything else at all. She had to put her priorities in queue.

Which was why when the stranger had pulled out a knife and slashed at her, her first reaction was to save the fish. She'd staggered under the momentum of the cut, reflexively pressed a hand to her abdomen in some kind of vain attempt to stem the blood flow, was vaguely aware of her grocery bag falling to the ground, and hoped that the eggs wouldn't break. An interface was easily reparable, but other organic substances were more susceptible to flaws in data reconstruction. Even as she was analyzing the eggshell composition, she'd reached out also to request information on her attacker's metabolic processes, and almost instantly regretted it. There were some biological functions she had no interest in researching further.

This was one of them. People always wondered, 'who knew what evil lurked in the hearts of men'? Well, she could only see neurons and frontal lobes and flashes of electricity, but she didn't have to know his exact intent. That was enough.

There were, she noticed, two stone shisa figurines perched on one of the tall fences bordering the alleyway. She didn't need a very thorough data jurisdiction over the area to manipulate those: her first incantation brought one slamming heavily into the side of the man's head as he prepared to strike again, and she couldn't help but feel a novel sense of pleasure as she detected his skull fracturing, blood splattering from his lips and nose. Her second incantation was a slightly more complicated one, disintegrating the remaining statuette into its component mineral forms until she had separate molten, malleable balls of feldspar, quartz, hornblende, and biotite to use for her disposal.

She sharpened them into four long granite spears, one for each limb, and drove them through just to make sure the stranger was sufficiently incapacitated. For some odd reason, she couldn't seem to stop smiling. Maybe it was the way he was screaming, mouth gaping in an almost comical fashion, the way his pinned body twisted in the desperate last throes of life, the stark color of blood seeping from every extremity, as dark as falling maple leaves. The knife, she noticed, had been dropped at her feet, so she did the courteous thing and picked it up for him, absently pricking her finger on the tip as she investigated her options.

His body would need to be disposed of. A simple enough task--she could break down the organic material and disperse it into the environment as particle data. It wouldn't be too difficult to remake the damage she'd done to the alleyway areas, such as the broken statues or the craters she'd punched into the concrete when staking down the stranger's arms and legs. She'd search him for identification before the cleanup and see if she couldn't forge a few police documents to explain his disappearance, but if that wasn't an option, it surely wouldn't matter if a single man inexplicably vanished from existence, would it? Earth had about six billion other individuals to take his place, whatever it might be. But, returning to the matter of police, it was possible that they could investigate the screaming, so it would be prudent to prepare for that eventuality...

And as inexplicably entertaining as said screaming was, it really was going to be a liability if it went on for much longer. Ryoko brandished her new knife, wondered briefly at how compelling its weight felt in her hands. It was all very illogical. But she supposed she already had a track record of doing unnecessary things by now. For instance, Yuki Nagato was surely waiting back home for her and the battered mackerel dinner she'd promised. It wouldn't do to make her superior impatient.

It really was interesting how easily life could be cut short, by as simple a tool as a blade. She didn't even have to deconstruct his body or manipulate the lifeform data or even utter a single incantation. Ryoko just slid the silver knife into the man's mouth, carving underneath the tongue muscle with an abrupt wrenching movement.

She had always wondered what it would feel like to be the butcher.


	4. 冬

"This is unnecessary."

"Of course it is. Isn't it also unnecessary to tell me that? You and I both understand how frivolous these human beings are. Why, just look at this ridiculous artificial tree. There's no purpose to the decoration, and if anybody wanted to admire a pine, they could simply walk outside and find one. Yet a holiday tradition like this exists. It's strange, isn't it?"

"It's strange that we are participating. There is no benefit of doing so in private."

"We don't have to flaunt our supposed humanity all the time. Doing human acts in and of itself will help us get accustomed to the illogical nature of their lives."

"Our lives are already illogical."

"Does that bother you?"

"I do not have the capacity to be 'bothered'."

"And that's just part of your charm, no doubt. Have some cake."

Yuki turned from her seat at the window, where she had been watching snowflakes falling like cherry petals. But rather than offer the plate, Ryoko leaned in to kiss her instead. She didn't respond even as Ryoko cupped her cheek, ran her other hand through Yuki's dark hair, down that pale throat, and rested her fingertips on her slender collarbone. She closed her eyes--according to what little knowledge she had about this particular human activity, she should be performing it exactly correctly.

Behind her eyelids, she could see dull red blooms of blood vessels. Underneath her fingers, she could detect Yuki's regular heart rate of exactly 60 beats per minute, vibrating steadily in the carotid artery under her white neck. It was a comfortable 23 degrees celsius in their small apartment, but outside the snow began falling more heavily, though Ryoko had been certain that the atmospheric pressure had predicted a clearing sky.


End file.
